


Good Night, Crows

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bedtime Stories, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 09:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19664392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: Kaz Brekker has somehow been entrusted with supervising a group of middle school students! While they wait for Inej to return from an errand, Kaz tries to keep Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Matthias all out of trouble by telling them a bedtime story--not that any of his little punks show signs of falling asleep...A modern AU in which the Crows are boarding school students staying on-campus over the winter holidays. Kaz and Inej are the oldest and try to look after the others.





	Good Night, Crows

**Author's Note:**

> You know what's miserable? Two record-setting earthquakes in as many days. You know what's a great distraction? Fanfic. I hope you enjoy this silly little fic and if you're also in the recent shake zone, hope reading it distracts you as much as writing it distracted me <3

Kaz Brekker was going to shoot someone. Possibly himself, for agreeing to this. No—there were too many things he hadn’t done yet. He had never worn a tuxedo, for one. Kaz liked the idea of wearing a tux one day, occasionally giving his lapels a tug whilst making a point, maybe infiltrating (or attending, one never knew) a state dinner. He had never held a currency strap fresh from the bank—hundreds, obviously, a strap of 100 one-dollar bills was child’s play. And he’d yet to retrieve the Akan drum from the British Museum though he strongly felt it belonged in Ghana.  
  
Yeah, there was too much left in the world for Kaz Brekker to do.  
  
He wasn’t actually going to murder anyone, though he was fairly certain the groundskeeper did have a gun. If anyone deserved to be shot over this situation, it was Dean Haskell, for talking Kaz into this. It wasn’t because of Kaz’s outstanding performance with the academic decathlon (no, that just kept his grades magically afloat so he didn’t lose his scholarship). Since Haskell couldn’t prove Kaz had anything to do with the macaroni incident, it wasn’t technically blackmail.  
  
Honestly, Kaz wasn’t sure how he got talked into spending the winter holidays dorming with a bunch of middle school kids just because they were the last ones left in Kerch Academy. He just knew that if the boy below him kicked his mattress one more time—  
  
_Thump_.  
  
“Fahey!” Kaz snarled, tossing his phone down and leaning over the side of the bunk.  
  
Usually he didn’t mind Jesper. But then, _usually_ he didn’t have to share a room with him. He’d been paired with the younger boy for orientation week—one of many times in the past few years Kaz had entertained thoughts of obtaining the groundskeeper’s gun, though that hadn’t turned out so badly. Jesper was hilarious and could be a lot of fun, and if they were the same age Kaz suspected he would feel differently, but Jesper was five years Kaz’s junior. 12-year-old energy got overwhelming at the best of times. 12-year-old _Jesper_ energy…  
  
He grinned up at Kaz. He was sprawled on the bottom bunk, on top of the blankets.  
  
“Hey Kaz,” he said.  
  
He turned a baseball over in his hands—so that was the thump, not kicking. He wore a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt he had modified with a Sharpie so it read ‘Kiss me I’m LITERALLY Irish’.  
  
“Do you ever sit still?” Kaz asked.  
  
“Nope,” Jesper said, giving the ball another toss. “I do better with stuff to do.”  
  
“You do better with stuff to do.”  
  
_Thump._  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Stop throwing the ball.”  
  
“Then I’d be bored,” Jesper whined.  
  
Kaz was on the brink of snapping that he didn’t care if Jesper was bored when Wylan Van Eck turned away from the window to say, “We could play catch. Then you wouldn’t be throwing the ball at Mister Brekker’s mattress.”  
  
Kaz scowled.  
  
Jesper ticked off on his fingers the reasons that was ridiculous: “You suck at sports, so I’d still be bored, plus you’ll miss and the window will break. And then we’ll be bored and cold.”  
  
“And don’t call me Mister Brekker.”  
  
The corner of Wylan’s mouth tugged down as he looked at his fuzzy socks. “I don’t suck at sports,” he protested softly, “I’m good at dance.”  
  
Kaz raised his eyebrows. Okay, the official biggest threat was no longer Kaz killing someone, it was Wylan killing himself. It wasn’t like Kaz cared, but he wasn’t oblivious. The slight redhead played in the school band, liked to dance, and followed after the art teacher Mister DeKappel like a lost puppy—how had he even survived school this long?  
  
Being Jan Van Eck’s son, Kaz supposed. Wylan might not be good at… life… but he was basically harmless and protected by his father’s name. Kaz knew Inej was about ready to adopt the boy, though he guessed that was because he looked about five years old with his open face and dinosaur jammies. Hell, his damn nose was red from being pressed against the glass to watch the snow.  
  
Jesper laughed. “Dance isn’t a sport.”  
  
“Yes, it is,” Wylan grumbled, turning back to the window. He popped his thumb into his mouth, then caught himself and removed it. Eleven was too old for thumb-sucking.  
  
“Watching for Santa, dewdrop?”  
  
Wylan turned back to Jesper. “Dewdrop?”  
  
“Yeah. Like water? Everyone knows that’s where the Van Eck money started. Your great-grandfather built that aqueduct, right?”  
  
“Great-great-great-grandfather,” Wylan admitted, shifting uncomfortably.  
  
“I mean it sucks for the farmers, but they were just _making a living where there was actual water_.”  
  
“I wasn’t there!” Wylan objected.  
  
Jesper opened his mouth, but from across the room came a quicker remark.  
  
“Wylan, I know it’s late, but would you help me with one more problem set?”  
  
Matthias Helvar. Kaz had nothing against the boy, aside from his being dull as a set of paint swatches in the sand-to-khaki range. Matthias might have the body of a bully—at only 13, he was already taller than Kaz and twice as broad, and his military-style buzz-cut added to the severity of his appearance—but he was a gentle giant. Mostly. Rumor was he’d been kicked out of his last school for fighting, though Kaz had seen no shred of aggression from him since.  
  
Wylan eagerly skittered away from the window and pulled another chair to the desk beside Matthias. Wylan sat on his knees. He was still shorter. As he explained the algebra problem that was giving Matthias so much trouble, Kaz reflected that they did look a bit like Santa and one of his elves.  
  
Santa and one of his elves?  
  
What the _hell_ was wrong with him?  
  
Kaz glanced down at Jesper, who gave him a hopeful look.  
  
“Can you sit still if I give you my DS for the night?”  
  
“For a little bit,” Jesper said.  
  
“You need your medication tweaked,” Kaz said, but he handed down his DS. Jesper’s wounded look was not lost on him.  
  
“What’s in it?”  
  
“Mario Kart.”  
  
“Ba _sic_.”  
  
“Don’t take it then.”  
  
“Mario Kart is just fine,” Jesper amended with a too-chipper grin.  
  
Kaz checked his phone again. No word from Inej. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face—she was late. She was supposed to have been here by now. He hoped nothing had gone wrong—he’d _told her_ this was unnecessary! She was just showing off.  
  
Meanwhile on the bunk below, Jesper had begun adding his own sound effects when Mario Kart didn’t squeal the brakes or _kaboom_ the explosions sufficiently.  
  
Kaz put down his phone and picked up a study guide instead. The math tests didn’t worry him, but he was _hoping_ to both pass his AP exam and score decently on the SAT subject test for U.S. History. It would be awesome if U.S. History stopped being boring, but as the chances of that were slim, Kaz had upped his study time.  
  
He was just utterly enjoying reading about the Whiskey Rebellion—okay, maybe it was _kind of_ interesting that stealing mail had always been a useful federal crime for obtaining information—when Wylan yelped. Kaz dropped the study guide against his chest.  
  
“Mister Brekker, he threw his baseball at me!”  
  
“Thought you wanted to play catch,” Jesper said.  
  
“Wylan, don’t call me Mister Brekker; Jesper, keep your balls to yourself.”  
  
Wylan blushed. Jesper laughed so hard Kaz felt the bedframe shake.  
  
“It’s time for bed, anyway,” Kaz said, “we don’t want a visit from Rollins.”  
  
“God, I hate that guy, he’s such a nutsack,” Jesper agreed.  
  
Matthias frowned at Jesper for taking the Lord’s name in vain (possibly for saying “nutsack”), but kept his opinion to himself as he tidied his math book and other supplies.  
  
Wylan obediently climbed up to the top bunk and crawled under the covers.  
  
“Good night, everyone.”  
  
It was surprising enough to hush all three of them. Then Matthias, who had paused mid-prayer, looked up to say, “Good night, Wylan.” And since they might have mocked Wylan but weren’t going to tangle with Matthias, that was that. Matthias finished his prayers, then turned off the lights and got into his bed.  
  
The dark was met with a soft squeak.  
  
Kaz knew who it was, but said nothing.  
  
Jesper knew who it was and said, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark, dewdrop.”  
  
“I am not!” Wylan yelped.  
  
“Aw, do you need a nightlight?”  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
Kaz groaned. He was getting a headache and had no idea how he would manage two and a half weeks of this—this was just the first night!  
  
Before he could intervene, there was a soft knock at the door. Jesper scrambled to open it, spilling in light from the hallway. The door was quickly closed again.  
  
“Hey, guys!”  
  
“That you, Zenik?” Kaz asked.  
  
“You know it is,” Nina said. “Inej said—”  
  
“Inej isn’t back yet,” Kaz interrupted.  
  
“And you’re not permitted in here,” Matthias added, sounding utterly scandalized. “It’s not proper. This is a boys’ dormitory!”  
  
“Well, _I_ _’m_ not proper, either.”  
  
“Yes,” Matthias agreed.  
  
Jesper laughed.  
  
“Shut up, Fahey.”  
  
“Bite my shiny metal ass, Zenik.”  
  
“You wish.”  
  
“ _You_ wish.”  
  
“You repeated my insult, so I win,” Nina said.  
  
“This round. What is it, infinity to infinity plus one?”  
  
“You can’t add to infinity,” piped a small voice. “Infinity isn’t a single number but the concept of eternal numerical continuity.”  
  
“Thanks,” Jesper said.  
  
“A googol is a number. Or a googolplex.”  
  
“Which?”  
  
“Both.”  
  
Nina said, “That’s made up.”  
  
“It’s not!” Wylan insisted, his tone whinier than Kaz would have liked for someone who was factually correct.  
  
“Does anyone have a phone?” Nina asked. “We can look this up.”  
  
Jesper asked, “Where’s your phone?”  
  
“Miss Nazyalensky confiscated mine. I _may_ have been using it for research purposes during study hall.”  
  
“What were you researching? How to cuss in Swahili?” Jesper asked.  
  
“ _Look_ , I happen to think Swahili sentence construction is fascinating, _okay_ , Fahey?”  
  
“ _Okay,_ Zenik,” Jesper mimicked. “You weirdo.”  
  
“You buttface.”  
  
“Enough, guys,” Kaz groaned, and was ignored.  
  
“Blister-biter.”  
  
“Bull’s-pizzle.”  
  
“What does that even mean?”  
  
“It’s Shakespearean, philistine,” said Nina loftily.  
  
“It’s very rude,” said Matthias.  
  
Pleased, Nina chirped, “Also that.”  
  
“What does it mean?” Jesper asked.  
  
“It means go to sleep!” Kaz snapped, and was ignored.  
  
“It means ‘Jesper has breath like a mule’s butt’.”  
  
“You already used a butt insult.”  
  
“Buttface.”  
  
“Buttbrain.”  
  
“Butthead.”  
  
“This is very immature,” Matthias objected, “and may I remind you all, Nina’s not allowed in here? This is a boys’ dormitory! And there are children present!”  
  
Kaz vaguely wondered how Matthias drew that line. He was only a year older than Jesper. How did Matthias decide Jesper was a child but he himself was not?  
  
“And she’s a buttcrack,” Jesper added.  
  
Oh.  
  
That was how.  
  
Kaz could just make out the shape of Nina in the dark as she reached for Jesper. She must have found him, because he yelped.  
  
In a matter of seconds they were both yelping and Kaz heard a scuffle. He leapt down from the top bunk, wincing at the pain through his leg, as Matthias bolted to put the lights on. Nina and Jesper were well set into each other. Matthias reached for a water bottle.  
  
“No,” Kaz barked. “Matthias, put it down, I don’t want a mess in here! Jesper, Nina, stop pulling each other’s hair or I’m shaving you both bald! And Wylan—” Kaz glanced at the boy to see what trouble he was getting into. Wylan was curled into a tight ball, facing the wall and shivering. Well, he was from California, he had a lot to learn about cold.  
  
Nina and Jesper separated carefully.  
  
“He started it,” she pouted.  
  
“Did not,” Jesper objected.  
  
“Did _too_.”  
  
“Don’t care,” growled Kaz. “Matthias, back in bed. Nina, if you’re staying, find somewhere to park your butt.”  
  
“She can share with me,” Jesper offered. There was nothing untoward about it. He and Nina were thick as thieves, like Little John and Will Scarlet.  
  
Jesper scooted back and Nina settled into bed beside her friend. Matthias’s disapproval was clear on his face, but he kept quiet.  
  
“Obviously I can’t leave you all unsupervised by _closing my eyes for ten seconds_ ,” Kaz growled, “so here’s what I’m offering. Shut your frigging traps and I’ll tell you a story. Next one to wag his tongue loses it. Deal?”  
  
Matthias, Nina, and Jesper nodded. Wylan didn’t respond, but Kaz expected no trouble from him.  
  
“Once upon a time,” Kaz began, “in a city called Ketterdam, there lived a useless boy called Joost. Joost couldn’t talk to a girl to save his life. Which sucked, because he was in love. He only had two problems, really: the moon and his mustache…”  
  
As Kaz talked about the hopelessly love-struck Joost, he thought about Inej, late to return from her errand. Something must have held her up. He hoped she wasn’t in trouble. Haskell, dean of the male students, could be a pain. Mrs. Van Houden, the dean of female students—now there was a real piece of work!  
  
He went to the closet to retrieve an extra blanket. Meanwhile, Joost’s peers rounded him up for an unexpected trip to the boathouse. Kaz told them all about the strange interrogation room that had been built there as he laid the blanket over Wylan and tucked it under him. He didn’t want the kid whimpering through his whole story!  
  
By the time Anya told Hoede to pick up the knife, the four kids were rapt. Even Jesper and Nina were quiet. They stared at Kaz, eager.  
  
“What happened next?” Nina asked.  
  
“Tell you tomorrow,” he replied, to a chorus of objections.  
  
“Please continue the story,” from Matthias. “You can’t just leave it there.”  
  
“We have to know!” from Nina.  
  
“Yeah, what the hell, Kaz?” from Jesper.  
  
Nothing from Wylan, but he had rolled onto his side away from the wall and was watching Kaz.  
  
Kaz sighed. He grabbed a desk chair and wedged his pillow onto the bunk bed ladder—his bad leg needed relief if he was going to do this.  
  
More comfortable now, Kaz said, “Okay, all right. Fine. _Kaz Brekker didn_ _’t need a reason_ …”  
  
Kaz actually thought this story was shaping up to be a very exciting one as pretend-Kaz and pretend-Inej had a showdown with a bad guy who just _happened_ to have the same name as the school’s meathead halfback. He tossed in a pretend-Jesper because the real one was getting antsy again. Even if the story was mostly about pretend-Kaz and pretend-Inej, Jesper clearly enjoyed ‘his’ cameos.  
  
When Kaz looked around again, feeling this piece had concluded well enough, the four younger students all had their eyes glued to him. Wylan was sucking his thumb.  
  
“Where was I?” Matthias asked.  
  
“Where was _I_?” Nina echoed.  
  
Kaz resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He was sorry, was his badass gangster story not good enough without a bunch of namedrops?  
  
“You’re in _prison_ , Matthias.”  
  
“Haha, you’re in prison,” Nina singsonged.  
  
“I bet it was your fault,” returned Matthias.  
  
Jesper perked up. “Five bucks?”  
  
“Do I need to remind you what happened to your phone?” Kaz asked.  
  
Jesper slumped back down, grumbling. He fiddled with his necklace, which he always did when he was especially cranky. Kaz thought the cross was an interesting choice for Jesper, but apparently his father had given it to him, and who was Kaz to question that?  
  
“Fine,” Kaz said, “ _fine_.”  
  
Before he could continue, the door opened.  
  
“Inej!” Nina chirped.  
  
“How’d it go?” Jesper asked.  
  
Inej shucked off her coat and sneakers. The mulberry-purple pajamas beneath them made her look like she had just rolled out of bed despite her immaculate braid.  
  
The others climbed out of bed and settled on the floor by unspoken agreement.  
  
“Get caught?” Kaz asked.  
  
“Of course I didn’t! But Mrs. Van Houden was there with Sten—”  
  
“Wait, Sten, as in, the kitchen assistant?”  
  
“Yes _that_ Sten,” Inej confirmed.  
  
She produced a bundle from inside her coat and handed out cookies. Everyone thanked her, even Matthias who did not approve of these things, and Wylan who took his thumb out of his mouth to shyly whisper thank you. If Wylan hadn’t been a baby and almost certainly disinterested in girls, Kaz might have suspected a crush.  
  
“Kaz was just telling us a story,” Jesper told Inej with his mouth full. “It’s a really good one!”  
  
“You’re in it,” Nina added, “and wow, god, you’re so cool.”  
  
“She’s already so cool,” Kaz said.  
  
“Well _duh_. Tell another part, Kaz,” Nina urged.  
  
“Yeah, tell another part,” Jesper chimed in.  
  
Kaz was just about to tell them all to stuff it, he’d already done two parts of the story, hadn’t he?  
  
“Enough,” Inej told them all gently. She gave Kaz a warm smile. “I’m sure Kaz is tired.”  
  
He was… he was. But she was smiling at him like that and…  
  
“I could tell a little more,” Kaz said.  
  
“Wait, are we all staying in here tonight?” Jesper asked.  
  
“I am,” Nina said, snuggling against him. “I can still sleep with you, right?”  
  
“You can _totally_ sleep with me,” Jesper said, and both of them laughed.  
  
“Matthias?” Wylan asked. “Could I stay with you?”  
  
Matthias gave him a smile worthy of a teddy bear. “Sure.”  
  
“Everyone done with the cookies?” Inej asked.  
  
Everyone nodded.  
  
“Wylan can vacuum tomorrow,” Kaz said.  
  
“Guess I drew the short straw…”  
  
“You are the short straw,” Jesper replied.  
  
Wylan pouted at him.  
  
“Aw, come on, I’m just kidding!”  
  
“Come on, guys,” Inej said, “get in bed. I’ll light the candles and Kaz can tell us the rest of the story.”  
  
Nina and Jesper returned to his bed, bickering about who got to be on the outside:  
  
“I was out first!”  
  
“I was out before I met you!”  
  
“I was out before you were born!”  
  
“I’m older than you!”  
  
“Well I was out in the _womb!_ _”_  
  
Inej shook her head. “Jesper, Nina…”  
  
They sighed.  
  
“You can have the outside, Nina.”  
  
“No way, you take it.”  
  
“I _insist_.”  
  
“I double insist!”  
  
Jesper flopped onto the bed and pressed his back to the wall.  
  
“Triple insist,” he said, pleased with himself.  
  
Nina stuck out her tongue and laid down next to him. She and Jesper pulled the covers up.  
  
Wylan asked and Matthias let him have the side of the bed against the wall.  
  
Inej gave everyone a quick once-over, offering Nina and Jesper high-fives and giving Wylan’s curls a stroke that had him practically purring, then nodded at Kaz. He shook his head— _no, you go ahead, Inej._ She just raised her eyebrows.  
  
“I need to do the candles, anyway.”  
  
That, and he knew that stubborn look! Kaz climbed back to his top bunk. With his leg, it could be difficult sometimes, but he had staked one out in each new dorm room he was placed in. No one was going to see Kaz Brekker as the boy who couldn’t even climb the ladder on a _bed_.  
  
Inej set the menorah on the desk nearest the window. She lit the shamash candle with a match, then lit two more candles with the shamash, reciting a blessing over them.  
  
Kaz noticed that Matthias and Wylan watched her as she did. He scowled at them, but neither seemed more than curious at the ritual.  
  
Inej shut out the lights. Kaz didn’t hear a sound as she ascended the ladder to Wylan’s bed—Wylan himself still with Matthias—but that was Inej. He imagined her as the wraith from his story, cleverly and silently scaling buildings… and shook his head. It was one thing for the kids to get all caught up in a fantastical tale, but that stuff wasn’t for Kaz.  
  
“Is everyone ready for Kaz to continue?” Inej asked.  
  
“Yes, Miss Ghafa.”  
  
“Ready.”  
  
“We’re ready!”  
  
“Oh my god, Jesper, don’t speak for me! But yeah, we’re ready.”  
  
So Kaz continued his story.  
  
“When we left off,” he said, “Inej was on the rooftop, looking for the stadwatch, while Kaz, Jesper, and Big Bol met with Geels in the Exchange. Geels revealed he’d bribed a guard, and ordered the guard to fire.”  
  
“What happened after they shot you?” Nina asked.  
  
“He _didn_ _’t_ shoot me,” Kaz replied. “Because I’m smart, because I’m always one step ahead. He shot Big Bolliger…”  
  
Kaz continued his story with only brief, occasional pauses to listen to the others’ breathing or look down at the three little flames glittering in the darkness. Each person’s breathing slowly steadied and deepened, until at least two of them were asleep and the others were close. He would need to review this all if he continued the story, but then, hadn’t that been the point?  
  
He tucked his hands under his head and kept listening. He liked them better as they were drifting off. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t completely hate Dean Haskell for talking him into this.  
  
Softly into the darkness, Kaz Brekker muttered, “Good night.”


End file.
